Gradient Nail Tutorial

I haven't been posting any outfits these days because I've been bumming out while studying for the SAT. Instead of ignoring my blog altogether, I decided to do a little nail tutorial. I always have my nails painted, and it's a rare sight to see them bare.

Anyways, I've wanted to try the gradient nail for a while now, but I could never find my sponges and I didn't want to go out and buy a new pack because I was so sure that I could find them. Turns out that they were tucked away in the dark corners of my mother's dusty makeup drawers, but I'm not quite sure how they ended up there.

This is my first time trying gradient nails, so please excuse any mistakes and disregard the mess on my fingers.

I chose to use Revlon Top Speed in Cloud (#710) and Pure Ice in Frosted Ice New Lilac (#763)

Paint a bit of one color on the makeup sponge.

Then directly below that, swipe the second color of your choice.

Make sure that the colors overlap in the middle so that there are no sharp distinctions once you put it on your nail. That would defeat the purpose of doing a gradient effect.

After all that, place the colors directly onto your nail and dab a few times.

After about 3 pats onto your nail, you'll need to paint the sponge over and over again to make sure that the paint actually goes on. "Refill" it, if you will.

Repeat as many times as desired.

You should keep dabbing until the colors become clear and visible.

Once you've done all your fingers, it should look like this. You can use new makeup sponges for each finger and make the paint match your nail size, but I'm a tad bit lazy so I just chose to use the same blob on each finger. That led me to the mess you see here, but this can be taken care of easily in the following steps.

You'll notice that because you dabbed it on, the paint looks quite bumpy and clumped.

But never fear, because this is where the glitter or transparent nail polish comes in handy.

I'll be using a glitter nail polish, but you can use a clear nail polish as well, for it gives the same effect.

I'm using New York Color in 103A and Maybelline Express Finish in #10.

I applied glitter nail polish to my thumb only, and you can see that everything is instantly smoothed out compared to the other nails that have not been touched yet.

And this is what it looks like when I put glitter nail polish on all my nails!

All of them are nice and shiny and now the last step is to get rid of the mess around the finger nails.

Pour some nail polish remover into the cap for easy access, and dip in a q-tip.

Then, carefully go around your nails until all the excess is removed.

Voila, the finished product!

This is my first tutorial and also the first time I've ever done these nails before, so I apologize if anything was unclear. Comment down below if you have any questions or recommendations/tricks on this gradient nail look.

If you don't get it the first time, keep trying! These nails are super easy to do and very appropriate for the summer time, especially when paired with bright colors!

I'm taking the SAT tomorrow, so I don't think there will be another post until Sunday or Monday.